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To: Minister for Housing, Chris Bishop; Minister for Māori Development, Tama Potaka; MP for Whangārei, Shane Reti; and MP for Northland, Grant McCallum

Keep building state housing in Tai Tokerau

Boarded up houses with the words State Housing Action Whangārei: Stop the Privatisation. Build State Housing Now.
We call on you to proceed with building the desperately needed 450 Kāinga Ora homes in Tai Tokerau that have been cancelled by your government, and stop selling state houses to the open market.

Why is this important?

Everyone in our community deserves to be housed. People should have agency over their housing, and it should be designed to be fully accessible and based on how people want to live. This would strengthen our communities, make life easier for whānau and provide the stability needed for a thriving city.

But successive governments have not done enough to make sure everyone in our community has a suitable housing. Now, the National-led Government plan to sell off state housing and make it less available to our communities. This will lead to more people living in unaffordable and unsuitable private rentals, in their cars and on the streets. It also means that state-owned land will be privatised that should otherwise be returned to hapū and iwi for Māori housing solutions.

In Tai Tokerau we have: 
- 1000+ households on the Housing Register 
- 5856+ people experiencing Severe Housing Deprivation (homelessness) *Census 2023 (grown since data was collected)
- Kāinga Ora is selling 59 homes to the private market
- And still, this National government has decided to cancel 40 developments, 450 homes that were in the pipeline, that would've housed whānau in need in Tai Tokerau[1]

We know from our own history and from overseas, that when governments play a bigger role in building and providing decent and suitable housing, we lay the foundation for thriving communities. We have built state housing at scale as a solution before, and we can do it again.

We are calling on Minister for Housing, Chris Bishop; Minister for Māori Development, Tama Potaka; MP for Whangārei, Shane Reti; and MP for Northland, Grant McCallum to advocate for the people of our communities to ensure that everyone has a decent, stable and accessible home, and to stop the sell off.

References:
  1. Critical housing shortage: Kāinga Ora axes 40 new Northland projects. Northern Advocate, 12 July 2025

How it will be delivered

This petition will be delivered as part of a National campaign

Northland Region, New Zealand

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Updates

2025-09-08 14:49:39 +1200

100 signatures reached

2025-08-21 14:13:10 +1200

50 signatures reached

2025-08-20 11:12:13 +1200

25 signatures reached

2025-08-19 22:32:47 +1200

10 signatures reached